Rick Carlisle criticized how overly physical opponents were defending Luka Doncic, comparing his treatment to Dirk Nowitzki.
"They're beating the s--- out of him. He's handling it well, but teams are taking liberties on him. We saw it with Dirk [Nowitzki] for 20 years here -- my 11 years -- all the time. Taking physical liberties on him, trying to knock him down, beat him up, stuff like that. It's not good. It's not good. He's handling it very well, but it's happening every game," said Carlisle before the Mavs game against the Hornets on Saturday night.
Carlisle declined to say whether he expressed his concerns to the league office.
Carlisle added that he's attempting to make officials aware of how Doncic is being guarded during games.
"We've just got to make the officials aware of it constantly. What happens is teams will come in and they'll set a level of aggressiveness. There's a level where it's so physical that they only call a certain number of fouls. We've got to be able to play like that. We've got an aggressive team, but taking liberties is not good.